Jury sworn in for spot-fixing trial...2011

Spot-fixing controversy..

The spot-fixing trial, involving one of cricket's greatest controversies, has begun with Pakistan's Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif appearing in court and a jury being picked and sworn in.

Former opening batsman and ex-Test captain Butt and swing bowler Asif sat in at the start of the case at Southwark Crown Court in central London. They are yet to speak as two hours of legal arguments ensued and an appropriate jury was sworn in after lunch with a mixture of racial backgrounds and sexes (six men and six women). Both players were asked if they had any objection to the jury formed and they said: 'No objections'.

Just 30 minutes was required after the lunch break to settle on a jury and Justice Cooke informed the court that proceedings would resume at ten the following morning. Cooke told the jury: "I think you will find this an interesting and unusual case." He also suggested that some of them would be aware of the case because of its high-profile nature but they were ordered not to research it or to discuss the case outside of the jury room

Butt and Asif, who flew in at the weekend from Lahore, are facing the possibility of a custodial sentence if deemed guilty, though both are pleading not guilty. They are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, following the Lord's Test in August last year when they allegedly conspired to bowl pre-determined no-balls.

Both wearing suits, without a tie, they sat in a dock sealed off by a Perspex screen with holes in for hearing purposes. Butt sat alone and listened intently, often leaning forward with a concentrated look on his face. Asif was accompanied by a Punjabi interpreter. Butt's barrister, Ali Bajwa QC, immediately informed Justice Cooke that his client did not require the services of an interpreter because he had a confident grasp of English.

Behind the players' dock sat interested journalists taking up every seat in the public gallery. They would no doubt have been pleased when Justice Cooke noted early on that they could 'tweet' from the courtroom as long as they did it quietly. With reporting restrictions in place, the detail of the legal arguments cannot be repeated at this stage.

But Justice Cooke did agree to three clauses that he later read out to potential jurors who were walked into the courtroom. They were told they would need to be available for up to five weeks, and were also informed that they would need to fill out forms asking three questions and if they answered 'yes' to any of them they could not sit in the jury.

The questions were: 1) Have they or any family members ever worked as a professional journalist or currently work in that capacity. 2) Do they or any family members earn their living from professional cricket? 3) Are they or family members working in the gambling industry?

 

Cooper keeps T&T alive..Must Watch

Trinidad and Tobago 138 for 8 (Bravo 29, Kemp, 3-22) beat Cape Cobras 137 for 4 (Shah 63*, Badree 1-19, Narine 1-19) by 2 wickets.
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Kevon Cooper's 25 off 11 balls saw Trinidad and Tobago beat the Cape Cobras and stay alive in the Champions League T20. Cooper scored 10 runs off Dale Steyn's fourth over, which cost 15 runs in total, and ensured T&T got the 24 runs they needed in the last two overs. This is the second time in the tournament that Steyn has bowled a costly penultimate over, with the first being against Chennai. The win means Mumbai Indians are through to the semi-finals. T&T's qualification depends on Chennai Super Kings beating New South Wales by a small margin. The Super Kings can also qualify if they win by a sufficient margin, while any victory for NSW puts them through.

Steyn turned from hero to villain in the space of an hour and a half; he started the Cobras defence of 137 with a magnificent three-over spell of outswing bowling. He demonstrated real skill on a dead pitch, consistently beat the outside edge and was rewarded in his second over when he got one to straighten and trap William Perkins lbw.

Steyn's colleagues were not as effective from the other end: Charl Langeveldt and Rory Kleinveldt struggled with their accuracy. Kleinveldt bowled three no-balls in an extraordinary over that only cost six runs and included the wicket of Lendl Simmons. Langeveldt was better when he changed ends and used the slower ball to good effect.

Adrian Barath and Darren Bravo's third-wicket partnership of 35 runs helped T&T recover from the loss of their openers. They rotated strike well, searched for the singles, and after Barath was dropped by Vilas behind the stumps he connected well to score two big boundaries.

Justin Kemp ensured that Barath could not continue attacking and hurled down a yorker to remove Barath's leg stump. The next ball, Daren Ganga was back in the hut too, after inside-edging onto his stumps. Kemp did not complete a hat-trick but took his third wicket two overs later, removing Bravo, who had played a sensible knock until then.

T&T would have thought their last hopes lay with Denesh Ramdin, who survived the hat-trick ball, and played some deft strokes. Ramdin and Sherwin Ganga took 13 runs off JP Duminy's second over and infused the chase with momentum. They were dismissed in the space of four balls, Ganga lbw to Langeveldt and Ramdin bowled by a flighted delivery from Robin Peterson.

It was left to Cooper to bat bravely and he did. His first six was a slog off Peterson and, after Rampaul steered Steyn to the third-man boundary, Cooper bludgeoned a high full toss over long-off, to leave T&T with only nine to get off the last six balls. In a final twist, Rampaul was dismissed with the first ball of the last over but Cooper smashed a low full toss for four and plucked the remaining runs with two balls to spare.

The Cobras would have felt their total was 10 runs short after a gritty batting effort, in which their strokeplay was constantly stifled. The T&T spinners troubled the Cobras batsmen from the start with Richard Levi at sea against Samuel Badree. He was bowled by Badree's second delivery, after playing for turn that was not there. Herschelle Gibbs was also dismissed cheaply after a cautious start.

Owais Shah and Dane Vilas built an impressive recovery. Shah started with an authoritative flick and maintained a busy approach at the crease, even though he could have been dismissed twice by Badree. The legspinner had a confident appeal for lbw against Shah when he hit him on the pads with a full delivery but Billy Bowden turned it down. During Badree's second spell, he beat Shah and the ball looked destined for middle and leg stump but Badree was turned down for the third time. Shah went on to anchor the Cobras innings and ground out a half-century.

Sherwin Ganga was the man both Vilas and Shah targeted; they took 38 runs from his three overs, peppering the midwicket area. Ganga's offspin they could handle, but Sunil Narine proved almost impossible to read and both employed a watchful approach against him. His legbreak eventually got the better of Vilas, who top-edged to cover after a well crafted half-century.

Shah had to hang around until the end and, even after bringing up his fifty, batting did not get any easier for him. Boundaries were rare and run-scoring came in ones and twos, which had to be manufactured, rather than simply being there for the taking. JP Duminy also couldn't find the boundary and was bowled by a Cooper cutter when he went looking for one.

Innings Dot balls 4s 6s Powerplay 16-20 overs NB/Wides Cape Cobras 40 13 1 31/2 26/1 0/2 Trinidad & Tobago 47 8 4 28/2 40/3 3/5

Warner-led NSW crush CSK en route to semi-final ..must watch

Chennai Super Kings v New South Wales, CLT20, Chennai

 

New South Wales 201 for 2 (Warner 135*, Steven Smith 31) beat Chennai Super Kings 155 (Hussey 37, O'Keefe 3-28) by 46 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

David Warner shook the Chepauk pitch out of its death-like slumber through a mix of clean straight hitting, including a six out of the stadium, and audacious switch-hits, one of them a pull for six over extra cover. On a square on which 135 has often looked like a winning total, Warner alone scored 135 off 69, the highest individual score in Champions league history, his second Twenty20 century, and considering the slow-and-low conditions one of the best T20 centuries. In the process he took New South Wales to the top of Group A, and through to the semi-final.

There was brute hitting involved, but that was only the latter part of the systemic dismantling of the Chennai Super Kings, who too had a chance of making it to the next round at the start of the match. That, though, was only until Warner started bringing the Super Kings down to their knees. After that all they could do was watch befuddled, and perhaps admire. They sure did beeline for Warner, to shake his hand once he was done.

They were not sure which hand to shake, though, for Warner frequently switched hands to bat like a right-hand batsman. With the "other" hand, he scored 22 off six balls. Only once did he miss. At the receiving end of three of those hits was R Ashwin, the Super Kings' ace and one of the best IPL bowlers. The other ace that Warner trumped was his New South Wales state team-mate Doug Bollinger, who went for 48 in his three overs.

With attack the only option left for the Super Kings in their chase, Michael Hussey and Suresh Raina scored 65 off 41 balls between them, but once the wickets started falling, the slowness of the track reappeared, and batting didn't quite look that easy. The Super Kings needed to win in 17 overs to qualify for the semi-final, but that just seemed to mock the defending champions.

Their destruction, though, began with Shane Watson who hit Bollinger for three fours in the second over of the innings. He was not in full control, but it forced the Super Kings to introduce Ashwin in the third over. A Murali-Pietersen moment was about to arrive. Warner changed his stance to the fifth ball from the spinner, switched the grip, got under the ball, and went over what was cover for his original stance. In Ashwin's next over Warner repeated the dose, and at 41 for 0 after five overs the Super Kings didn't seem to have any answers.

Ashwin came back to dismiss Watson for 21 off 19 with a carrom ball, but the Super Kings never recovered. NSW promoted last match's hero Steven Smith, and he and Warner pushed the fielders with canny placement and aggressive running in the initial stages of the innings. Shadab Jakati dropped Warner off the last ball of the 10th over. That was cue enough for Warner to launch from 73 for 1.

Warner was 40 off 29 then, and scored 95 off his last 40. The second assault, too, began with a switch hit. Raina was at the receiving end this time. The coup de grace, though, was even more brutal. Bollinger came back in the 13th over, and met a lovely straight drive for a six and a short-arm pull for four. Warner stood steady in the crease, and swung at whatever length Bollinger bowled.

Jakati's flat non-turners were fair game for some smashing, and he duly went for 15 runs in the 14th. Warner waited for Raina to fire them in in the 15th, and lofted him for a four and six too. Ashwin came back to take his punishment, to be switch-pulled for a six. Well and truly rattled, the Super Kings began misfielding all over the place.

Some more punishment remained, though. This time for Dwayne Bravo, the only man with respectable figures of 3-0-19-0, including a drop off his bowling. As with Bollinger, Warner stayed still with Bravo too. The full balls went for two straight sixes. Almost forgotten was as big a six that Moises Henriques hit. Almost forgotten was that Steven Smith played a handy innings of 31 off 29, keeping Warner on strike as much as possible.

The night, though, was about Warner. He would go on to switch-hit Bravo for a four past what was originally mid-off. For the photo album he would launch Bollinger onto the roof and out of the stadium, and watch in admiration, shielding his eyes with his hand, the way you would when watching a plane in mid-afternoon.